As computers have become ever more miniaturized and commoditized, manufacturers are producing more and more varied devices that include one or more embedded computer or processor. The computer in a computerized device can control the device's operation; collect, store, and share data; communicate with other computers and other computerized devices; and update its own software, among other things.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of computerized physical devices that have embedded processor(s), electronics, software, data, sensors, actuators, and/or network connectivity, which enable these devices to connect and exchange data via digital networks, including the Internet, cellular networks, and other wireless networks. Typically, each “thing” is uniquely identifiable through its embedded computing system, and is able to inter-operate within the existing Internet infrastructure.
“Things”, in the IoT sense, can refer to a wide variety of computerized devices, such as consumer appliances, enterprise devices used in business and corporate settings, manufacturing machines, farming equipment, energy-consuming devices in homes and buildings (switches, power outlets, appliances, lighting systems, bulbs, televisions, garage door openers, sprinkler systems, security systems, etc.), medical and healthcare devices, infrastructure management devices, robots, drones, and transportation devices and vehicles, among many others.
For example, most, if not all, modern vehicles and transportation machinery (e.g., automobiles, trucks, aircraft, trains, watercraft, motorcycles, scooters, and the like) contain several embedded processors or embedded computers in their subsystems, and are computer-controlled in at least some aspects. Similarly, a growing number of modern transportation infrastructure devices (e.g., traffic lights, traffic cameras, traffic sensors, bridge monitors, bridge control systems, and the like) contain at least one, and often many, embedded processors or embedded computer systems, and are computer-controlled in at least some aspects. These computer-controlled elements of the transportation network typically communicate with each other, passing various types of information back and forth, and they may react, respond, change their operation, or otherwise depend upon the information received/sent from/to other vehicles in Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V; also known as Car-to-Car (C2C)) communications and/or from/to infrastructure elements in Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I; also known as Car-to-Infrastructure (C2I)) communications for safe, correct, efficient, and reliable operation.
The computers in computerized devices operate according to their software and/or firmware and data. In order to ensure safe and proper operation, the computerized devices must be properly initialized and updated with the proper software, firmware, executable instructions, digital certificates (e.g., public key certificates), cryptographic keys and the like (hereinafter collectively referred to as “digital assets” or “software”) as intended by the manufacturer, so that the IoT consists only of devices that are executing authorized, known-to-be-good software and data. Problems arise, however, when unauthorized persons or organizations (e.g., hackers) replace or change the software in computerized devices. Problems also arise when older software, untested software, unapproved software, and/or software with known bugs is installed in computerized devices.
In the fields of computer networking, packet-switched networks, and telecommunications, Quality of Service (QoS) refers to a set of technology and techniques designed to provide improved service to selected users, customers, client devices, or network traffic. The goal of QoS is to provide guarantees on the performance of a service or network. QoS metrics can include delay, availability, latency, bandwidth, upload data transfer rate, download data transfer rate, and per-session upload/download limits (i.e., total amount of megabytes or gigabytes that can be uploaded and/or downloaded during a network session). A service or a network can assign different QoS levels to different users and client devices. QoS can also guarantee a certain level of performance to a user or client device in accordance with requests from an application program. QoS guarantees are important when computing capacity or network capacity is limited, or when requests to be fulfilled are delay sensitive.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide improved systems, methods and techniques for providing QoS levels while securely provisioning digital assets in computerized devices, such as IoT devices, vehicles, and transportation infrastructure devices, in order to reduce or eliminate delays in provisioning the digital assets in the computerized devices.